X accounted for 55% of 382 tracked appearances of false claims across 12 platforms ahead of the U.S. midterms, NewsGuard said, while AFP reported a separate shortfall in the platform’s Community Notes.
NewsGuard’s election tracker, last updated Oct. 19, 2026, counted 382 confirmed appearances of 27 false claims. Fourteen of the claims originated in an X post. The tracker’s appearance figures cover multiple platforms and do not supply a denominator for the separate Community Notes review.
AFP reported NewsGuard’s assessment that 93.1% of false claims related to the midterms had no Community Notes. AFP said 13 of the dozens of X posts identified by the watchdog carried notes, while posts without notes had received millions of interactions. Its dispatch did not specify the review’s sample size, dates or calculation method. EconoTimes previously covered NewsGuard’s Community Notes finding.
AFP cited a conservative commentator’s post alleging New York and California barred voters from showing identification or election workers from requesting it. New York’s voter guidance says photo ID is not required, although some first-time voters whose identity was not verified may be asked for identification. California says voters generally do not need ID, with limited exceptions for some first-time federal voters.
X says its system makes a note public after enough contributors with differing viewpoints rate it helpful. The company also says a note alone does not lead it to label or remove a post unless that post separately violates its rules. AFP said X did not respond to its request for comment on NewsGuard’s findings.
A separate study published in Nature Communications analyzed 237,180 fact-checking cascades created from Oct. 6, 2022, to June 11, 2024, and reposted more than 431 million times. Researchers found that displaying notes reduced later spread by 61.2% on average and estimated a 14.9% system-wide reduction in total engagement. They saw less impact on political material and posts from high-profile accounts. The study did not examine NewsGuard’s 2026 review.
The U.S. general election is scheduled for Nov. 3, 2026.
